


Can't Help Myself

by Nokomis



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Humor, OR IS IT, Over the top flirting, Tumblr: fyeahjaysteph, Turning Annoying Bruce into an Art Form
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25477504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: Steph and Jason begin to flirt outrageously with each other to annoy Bruce. It’s totally pretend. No actual feelings at all.
Relationships: Stephanie Brown/Jason Todd
Comments: 41
Kudos: 311





	Can't Help Myself

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the @fyeahjaysteph July Monthly prompt "Playing Pretend." Huge thanks to Rainpuddle for looking this over! ♥
> 
> [Come say hi on tumblr!](https://nokomiss.tumblr.com/)

It started out innocently enough.

There was a minor Arkham breakout -- none of the big names, but enough two-bits all at once that all of the Bats were called in. Steph ended up corralling two of the escapees back -- Calendar Man and Killer Moth -- and was feeling pretty awesome about life, especially when Dick cheerfully insisted that they go out for a celebratory breakfast afterwards.

They all ended up at a diner that Dick suggested, squished into the big corner booth hip-to-hip. Steph was between Jason and Cass, happily sharing a plate of hash browns with Cass and refusing to let anyone touch her waffles. She’d ordered the fancy birthday ones, blatantly lying to the waitress and insisting that of course it was her birthday, she needed so many sprinkles. 

The waitress had laughed and clearly not believed her lies, but had brought her out waffles festooned with whipped cream, sprinkles, and vanilla ice cream anyway. 

All in all, it’s a very congenial vibe. Batman isn’t smiling, but there’s a soft fondness as he surveys all his former proteges at one table. Dick keeps shoving greasy diner food at Damian, Babs and Tim have their heads pushed together over a tablet, though Steph can see from here that they’re playing a game, not working, and Steph keeps protecting her waffle -- and most importantly, her ice cream -- from Cass, who has decided to use her ninja skills for evil and keeps attempting to steal giant spoonfuls every time Steph looks away.

Normally she wouldn’t begrudge her best friend ice cream, but Bruce is right there, Mr. Wallet himself, and Cass should just _order her own_ , which Steph keeps pointing out. Because she knows Cass will eat every bit of the ice cream with zero remorse. 

The result of Steph pulling her waffle away from Cass was that she ended up squished even closer against Jason. Which wasn’t exactly something she was hating aesthetically, and also because she and Jason tended to vibe humor-wise.

Another result is that one of Jason’s guns was digging into the side of her thigh, and Steph. Steph was just not capable of letting such a prime opening slide by. “Hey, Jason, is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

Jason let out a loud laugh and immediately reached down to rearrange his holster so that the gun was no longer digging into Steph’s thigh, though she imagined that the table blocking the view of what, exactly, he was doing made the motion look far more suggestive. “Always happy to see you, babe.”

But Bruce-- she saw him _twitch_. She knew that shoulder twitch. It was the same one that accompanied his _questioning all his life choices_ eye twitch. 

One glance over and she saw that Jason had seen it, too. They both perked up, like wolves catching the scent of prey. Bruce deliberately did look in their direction, but instead continued to cut his hamburger into bite-size pieces.

So Steph did the only scientific thing she knew to do and tested the hypothesis. She leaned her head against Jason’s shoulder and said, loudly, “Great guns!” while putting her hand pointedly on his bicep.

Bruce twitched again.

Tim saw it, too. “Oh no,” he told Bruce. “You showed weakness.”

Bruce just stabbed another piece of his hamburger with a fork and tried to ignore them. Dick was snickering, while Babs sighed. “You know they’re incapable of letting it drop.”

They grinned at each other, happy in the knowledge that they had a new way to annoy Bruce.

*

Doing harmless things to irritate Bruce was a long-standing tradition amongst former Robins, but with this new information Jason and Steph took the immediate lead, were anyone actually keeping track.

It was so, so remarkably easy to do. Just throw out some ridiculous innuendo, or -- as Jason demonstrated the next time they all three happened to be doing patrol in the same vicinity -- flinging themselves dramatically into each other’s arms, and Bruce was just so very done. 

Jason actually swept Steph into his arms and dipped her dramatically like they were in one of the old movies that Alfred preferred, cheek brushed against hers in a facsimile of a kiss. 

“Can you two not do that,” Bruce said with a sigh.

“Are you trying to stifle our love?” Steph asked, looking at him from upside down. She curled one leg around Jason’s to lift herself back up, and grinned at Bruce.

Bruce just turned and left with a dramatic cape swoop, but Steph could have sworn she heard him mutter, “You’re stifling _my_ love.”

She untangled herself from Jason and they high fived.

*

Vigilante work being what it was, sometimes it wasn’t feasible to orchestrate dramatic displays of affection within Bruce’s eyeline. Unluckily for Bruce, comms exist.

“Sugarpie, how’s the crime fighting going?” Steph inquired sweetly into the open line, the one meant for communicating during a full-family team-up.

“Wonderfully, honeybunch,” Jason replied promptly. “Just kicked a drug dealer’s teeth in.”

“Oh, honeybuns,” Steph said cheerfully. She was fairly certain she heard a grunt of disapproval that was decidedly Bruce-like. The rest of the comms were silent; either everyone else had packed it in for the night or they had muted them. Good.

“My adorable snickerdoodle,” Jason countered with.

“You glazed donut of love.”

“Schnookums.”

“Poopsie Schmoopsie,” and Steph made kissy noises to accompany it. 

“Pookie-bear of my heart,” and Jason added, “You couldn’t see it, but I made heart-hands to go with that.”

“Of course you did, my hot buttered love-biscuit,” Steph said, trying and mostly succeeding to keep the laughter out of her voice.

“Okay, children,” Babs cut in. “I know you’re having fun, but the old man’s blood pressure really is spiking. Unless you want to be responsible for Batman having a stroke…”

“Quick question, B-man, am I in the will?” Steph asked. 

There was a silence on the other end that managed to convey the Bat-glare. It was a truly impressive work of silence. 

“Jeez, just asking,” Steph muttered. 

“I totally am,” Jason cut in with. “Legal son and everything. Which means, if you want an in with the family…” 

He trailed off meaningfully.

“Oh my gosh, Jason, are you _proposing_?” Steph squealed, feeling unholy glee at the fact that Bruce was still resoundingly silent. “B! I’m totally gonna be your daughter now, you’re never going to escape me.”

_That_ finally got a reaction out of Bruce. “There was no proposal. There will _be no proposals_.”

Steph cackled into the line, and heard Jason’s uncontrolled laughter on the other end at how incredibly stressed out Bruce sounded at the idea.

*

So it turns out that pretending to be in love with Jason is actually a lot of fun. Which is kind of a problem, given how much she’s starting to look forward to their encounters.

She mentioned this to Cass on their next patrol together, and Cass nearly fell off a gargoyle laughing at her.

“What?” she said, pouting at her supposed best friend.

Cass shook her head and made a quick, sweeping gesture with her arms, which Steph, despite considering herself somewhat fluent in Cass, couldn’t interpret. Either it was a ‘you’re a moron’ or else a ‘you’ll figure it out.’ Frankly Steph didn’t really _want_ to think of either of those implications, and decided to change the subject instead.

Before she did, she thought about asking Cass if Jason was having as much fun, too, but that felt like cheating, somehow, though she wasn’t quite sure at what game.

*

One night fate aligned and Steph found herself in the Cave finishing up some research on a case, and the only other people there were Bruce and Jason.

Bruce -- after noticing exactly who he shared the cave with -- focused entirely on his work, sparing them only the barest of glances.

Something had to be done.

So Steph plopped down on Jason’s lap, draping an arm over his shoulder and snuggling up against his chest. Jason was a lot comfier than she would have thought, given how much of his mass was muscle.

Bruce kept ignoring them pointedly.

Jason tucked his face close to hers, and whispered, “Bruce actually offered the others money if they could convince us to stop terrorizing him,”

Steph giggled. “Any idea why it bothers him so much?”

“Tim thinks it’s because he can’t figure out who to give the shovel talk to.” Jason’s mouth was close enough to hers that it brushed against her cheek as he talked, and Steph was absolutely focusing on Jason’s words and not something shallow like his mouth right now. Abso-freaking-lutely.

“That’s adorable,” Steph said. It really was, too, and gave her a warm happy feeling in her chest. “I mean, should we stop trying to irritate him?”

“Hmm?” And yeah, Jason was looking at _her_ mouth, and one of his hands was now resting on her hip. She could convince herself it was just to balance her, but the way his thumb grazed along her hipbone made it hard to think.

She suddenly remembered Cass laughing at her, and -- _oh_. Was she that oblivious? Did she actually have a real-life crush on Jason, not just an it’s-fun-to-irritate-Bruce crush on Jason?

The butterflies in her stomach seemed to imply that perhaps, just maybe, that she did.

Huh.

Bruce was still pointedly ignoring them, so Steph decided, what the hell. Worst case scenario, she had to pretend that this was just to annoy Bruce. So she tilted her head just enough that their mouths were lined up, and met Jason’s eyes.

He looked surprised, but there was definite underlying interest there. So Steph kissed him.

Their mouths fit together perfectly, and Steph tangled one hand into the hair at the nape Jason’s neck as they kissed. Slowly at first, almost uncertain, but it felt right, and soon they were lost in it. 

Steph let out a happy sigh as the kiss broke, and said, “Okay, I’m just going to be clear about this -- that had _nothing_ to do with Bruce.”

“You have no idea how thankful I am to hear that,” Jason said, and then he was kissing her again, all uncertainty left in the dust. The world narrowed down to Jason’s mouth moving on hers, and Jason’s tongue, and Jason’s hand creeping up her waist. Steph’s hands might have done a little creeping of their own, and she was just about to make things interesting when --

“No. Absolutely not. Get the hell out of my cave.” Bruce, and he sounded completely, utterly _done_.

Steph froze, still perched on Jason’s lap. Jason likewise froze. 

Steph had the benefit of having her back to Bruce, and she could tell from Jason’s expression that Bruce was totally not pleased with this development. They were definitely the recipients of a patented Bat-Glare. Steph grimaced and mouthed, “I forgot!” and Jason nodded, which -- that made Steph feel pretty great about her kissing skills. 

Less great about her critical thinking skills, because now she had to dismount from Batman’s son and do a walk of sorry-we-made-out-with-you-in-the-room shame.

Or---

Steph twisted around, one arm draped over Jason’s shoulders, and beamed at Bruce, saying, “Sorry, B, but he’s just so cute, y’know?” and gave Jason’s cheek an old-lady-pinch. 

When in doubt, brazen it out. 

Bruce looked briefly heavenward, and Jason began to snicker. “You realize you have only yourself to blame, right?”

“No making out in the Cave. That’s a rule,” Bruce said firmly.

“Really? Because Selina said--” Steph began, trailing off to leave Bruce plenty of room to imagine what Selina theoretically had sad. 

Bruce did not dignify that with an answer. Jason muttered, “Good one,” into her ear, and she giggled, and Bruce twitched again. Probably the two of them teaming up was his worst nightmare, she could admit. Individually they picked at all his weaknesses, but teamed up they were a force to be reckoned with.

Steph had zero regrets.

“I’m fairly certain you both have better things to do,” Bruce finally said when it became apparent to him that they were not going to just disappear and leave him in peace. 

Steph bit her lip. Jason let out a burst of laughter that made him look, for once, his actual age. 

“Nope,” they said simultaneously. 

Steph definitely didn’t have something better than Jason to do. “Race you upstairs?” 

“You’re on,” Jason said, stopping just short of giving his eyebrows a suggestive waggle.

“Not what I meant,” Bruce called, but he didn’t follow them upstairs. 

Steph was so incredibly thankful for that.


End file.
